Re: [Marxism] Revolution shall come from the workers themselves (notes)

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 23:28 -0400,  Shacht@xxxxxxx wrote:

> What? Is there no room in Marxmail for Council  Communists? Are they 
beyond  
> the pale?  


Comment 
 
Council Communists by another name are anarcho-syndicalists, while by no  
stretch of the imagination is a bad word in my book. Condemnation of Lenin  
and Trotsky for not being Council Communists, without analysis or attempts to 
 unravel the meaning of Council Communism as a historical  phenomena 
contributes little to the list awareness and insights. 
 
The modern, scientific communist movement began as manufacturing with its  
small, scattered workshops was replaced by industry with its concentration 
of  thousands of workers in giant factories. This development was expressed 
by the  founding of the Communist League and the 1st or Workingmenâs  
International.  In 1848, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were called upon to  
write 
a manifesto for the League, which was called The Communist Manifesto. The  
Communist League then became The Communist Party. 
 
The productive capacity of the industrial countries developed very rapidly. 
 So long as national production was restricted to the national market, the  
struggle between the capitalists and the workers hardened and intensified 
year  by year. The communist movement grew with strikes and uprisings by the 
workers.  The means of production rapidly went through several quantitative 
phases of  expansion and the struggle between the classes subsided as the 
capitalists  crossed a quantitative boundary; expanded their markets by 
conquering the  economically backward areas of the world. The emergence of 
financial-industrial  imperialism reformed the relations within and between 
class 
at the front of the  curve of industrial development or in the advanced 
countries. At the back of the  curve feudal political, economic and social 
relations were being overthrown. 
 
There has always been an underlying tension between Council Communism -  
(first appearing as French syndicalism during the early boundary of industrial 
 development and then anarcho-syndicalism as it arose in the 1890s) and  
Marxism or the scientific sector of the communist movement. 
 
As the industrial working class expanded and the contradictions of monopoly 
 capitalism intensified, a number of working-class organizations throughout 
 Europe and America came into being and the two dialectically opposed 
trends  became clear. On the one hand there was the spontaneously developed 
trend 
called  syndicalism, or the idea that the mass organizations, especially 
the unions, can  reconstruct society by simply intensifying the economic 
struggle. With the  transition from craft form of unionism to industrial 
unionism, there is a  merging of various anarchist doctrine and militant 
political 
syndicalism  expressed in a new doctrine called anarcho-syndicalism. 
Coinciding with the  initial transition to industrial unionism, at least for 
America, was the  emergence of modern finance capital, of which Lenin would 
write 
50 years later.  American finance capital or financial industrial imperialism 
arose through the  process of the Civil War. 
 
Anarcho-syndicalism becomes the internal ideological and political content  
of Council Communism during the rise of financial-industrial imperialism. 
 
This doctrine basically states that a loosely federated group of  
revolutionaries can overthrow the state on the basis of workers councils and 
the  
national-political general strike; carry out insurrection by workers councils  
and reorganize the economy through councils.  
 
On the other hand, groupings of Marxists, who based their activity along  
the lines of a political struggle, evolved alongside of and within the  
syndicalists. The Leninists section of Marxists advanced along a line of march  
that basically says, insurrection is an art and required a highly trained 
group  of professional revolutionaries skilled in the art of evading the 
political  police; organized along military line without being the military and 
it 
is such  a political grouping - a Party of A New Type, that can seize the 
commanding  heights of power. This was the idea . . .  basic idea, of Marx 
and Engels  who formed the Communist League and then the Communist Party, 
rather than a  Workers Council organization. One should ponder why Marx and 
Engels advanced the  idea of a Communist Party rather than a Workers Council as 
the basic form of  organization of Communists.  
 
This conscious, intellectual movement of communism, organized as the  
Communist Party, cannot and could not unite with its political and  theoretical 
antithesis, the spontaneous syndicalist movement of the working  class, at 
least until capitalism and the industrial system has completed its  
development and begins leaping (transition) to a new mode of production. This  
completion is marked by two critical junctures; the wiping out of the small  
producers â the economic middle â and the two poles stand face to face. The 
 
first phase of the wiping out of the economic middle is connected to the  
destruction of all the hangovers of economic and political feudalism or late  
stage manufacture, which provides the economic legs for the small producer. The 
 
second an final phase of the destruction of the economic middle occurs as 
the  result of capital and the industrial system completing all its 
boundaries of  development. In this final stage the economic middle appears as 
the 
middle class  industrial proletariat, created on the basis Fordism or the 
industrial union  movement. 
 
In America this dynamic cause much grief because problems of history  
development cannot be resolved by political fiat. The fighting section of the  
American communist movement was anarcho-syndicalist and its intellectual  
counterparts were Marxists held together in an unspoken true. For much of my  
life I was the former, won over to the undeniable genius of Lenin. In fact we  
were part of the last and finally generation of Council Communists -  
anarcho-syndicalists, to emerge before the industrial system had completed its  
final boundary and begun the leap to a new technological regime. In fact  
probably 70 - 80% of this list and everyone over the age of 60 began their  
political life as Council Communists - anarcho-syndicalist. This was the  
generation that entered the political struggle in the mid and late 1960's. 
Since  
"the system" had not completed all its quantitative boundaries of 
development  there could be no synthesis, one side remained syndicalist and the 
other 
 sectarian. 
 
The destruction of the economic middle, which twenty years ago was called  
the "de-industrialization of America,"  is witnessing a change in the form  
of the leading section of the American proletariat. Council communism -  
anarcho-syndicalism, can be united with Marxism if the former cast off its old  
legacy inherited as an expression of the industrial order and the latter 
cast  off its sectarianism, the legacy of the rise and fall of the economic 
middle. 
 
Today, very few Marxists would argue that the state needs to be the primary 
 organization of public property. I argue that the state should not be the  
property holder period. I'll take my chances. Nor should the state or 
Workers  Councils dictate the terms and conditions of labor as a precondition 
for 
 distribution of the social products. 
 
Today, all the old question appear much more clearly. 
 
The issue of Council Communism is worth exploring provided one leaves the  
comfort of simple condemnation. Perhaps in 1920/21 Lenin and Trotsky 
understood  something deeper than "industry to the workers, land to the tiller, 
death to the  oppressor." After all, this was in fact the political ideology of 
the Council  Communist of that era. 
 
One thing I learnt pretty well from the Marxists and Leninists: when you  
are defeated in an internal political struggle, it is best to shut up . . . . 
 especially if you are right. Or you can split the group, which in the last 
 century meant splitting along the lines of Marxism and 
anarcho-syndicalism, with  both poles containing both tendencies. No such thing 
as a pure split 
between  Marxism and anarcho-syndicalism. 
 
With the destruction of the economic middle proletariat and bourgeoisie  
faces each other as the two great classes. Marx saw the process 150 years 
before  it ran its course and told communist to prepare yourself just in case a 
crisis  of sufficient duration appeared that made it possible to take power. 
Lenin faced  such a crisis and preformed admirably. His triumph changed 
history by creating a  new line of history. His mistakes provides us with 
gigantic lessons that  perhaps would have perhaps taken the workers another 200 
years to figure  out. 
 
Long live Lenin! May he rest in peace. 
 
Interesting . . . . yes? 
 
It gets deeper. Within the old Stalin - Trotsky polarity was the same  
Marxism and anarcho-syndicalism polarity with each pole gravitating towards it  
counterpart in disregard to the "irreconcilable differences." I would fight  
alongside of an old anarcho-syndicalist at the drop of a hat. They walk  
different and talk different and one can see them coming a mile away. These 
guys  and girls knew how to fight and party all night long. And then get up in 
the  morning only to do it all over again. The good ole days. 
 
Long live every damn body. 
 
WL. 
 
 
 
 
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